The typical U.S. small business is not spending much, if anything, on Facebook ads this year, according to the WSJ’s story today on the rising cost of advertising on the social-media outlet.

Facebook ads cost more, and are reaching fewer users, because there’s less ad space available and competition for that space has intensified. The story cites the experiences of three small businesses — an earphone-maker, an electric-bike maker and a Web platform for enrolling children in classes — with mixed results.

Facebook says the cost of its ads rose because the ads deliver more value. It also says it has many happy customers, including Amy Norman, co-founder of Little Passports Inc., who in June began spending about $250,000 monthly on Facebook ads. More on this after the jump… Read More »

If you want to test a new drug, you’ll often need to do blind clinical trials, where nobody–neither the subjects of the tests, nor the people running them–know who is getting the experimental drug and who isn’t.

It’s a system that has worked well for drug makers for decades, removing potential sources of bias from test results. But the blind trial is running into some very 21st century challenges lately, reports the WSJ’s Amy Dockser Marcus:

On Facebook groups, online forums and blogs, some patients are effectively jeopardizing the blind. In trials for hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis and ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), patients have been sharing details of their reactions and trying to figure out whether they are getting the active drug.

Patients also swap tips on how to get accepted into trials, even if they don’t meet all the requirements. Some who are in trials collect and analyze their medical data and others’ to get an early indication of whether a drug will be a success.

Facebook’s massive psychological experiment involving almost 700,000 unwitting users has attracted plenty of attention and outrage, but it’s far from the only time the company has used it’s enormous data set to conduct social research. The company’s research team has access to a pool of information any academic would dream of, and it has taken full advantage of that, pumping out an impressive stream of research.

Here’s five pieces of research produced by the company that caught out eye – you can click through to see more on each report and look at the full studies.

Families on Facebook (2013)
“Using a wealth of anonymized, aggregated intra-family communication data, we also paint a detailed picture of what parents and their children talk about on Facebook. Consistent with offline research, we see mothers doling out affection and reminding their kids to call, and fathers talking about specific shared interests, such as sports and politics.”

The European Union probe of tax deals between three governments and three global corporate giants, including Apple Inc., is the latest salvo in a broader European effort to wring more corporate tax revenue from multinational companies—particularly big U.S.-based tech firms.

Countries including the U.K., Germany and France have sought to crack down in recent years on big companies they allege don’t pay sufficient taxes. The crackdown comes amid economic malaise across much of Europe. Governments have sought new rules at the European level but have also pushed for global standards at forums like the Group of Seven.

And they have been sending tax cops in with the threat of massive bills. More on this after the jump… Read More »

Retail giant Tesco is underperforming not just in the financial arena but in the digital realm as well, according to a new report that finds it has the worst Facebook engagement among the top four U.K. supermarket chains.

The social-media analysis firm BirdSong said Tesco has a Facebook engagement rate of just 0.98%—despite having the cohort’s largest fan base, 1.42 million fans. Only Co-operative Group’s grocery chain, which has just over 61,000 fans on the social-networking site, has a lower rate of engagement, 0.62%. Read More »

Tuesday’s European Court of Justice ruling that individuals may ask Google to delete links to old information about themselves is just the most surprising in a recent string of moves toward stricter online privacy protections in Europe.

An overhaul is under way of data-protection rules in the European Union—the first since 1995. The directly elected parliament wants fines for companies that abuse citizens’ data equivalent to 5% of annual world-wide revenue, although this could be lowered in negotiations with member states.

A French court ordered Google to remove images of former Formula One racing boss Max Mosley taking part in a sex orgy involving sadomasochistic role-play with women, while in the U.K., celebrities, including professional soccer players, have taken out so-called super-injunctions to prevent the media from writing about extramarital affairs. More on this after the jump… Read More »

What did you get in return for an investment? Everybody who funded the company with $10 was promised “a sincere thank you from the Oculus team” and regular updates on the project. When the funding period closed at the beginning of September, 1,009 people had kicked in ten bucks each. A $25 investment got you a T-Shirt as well as a thank you.

The real action was the $300 investment: for that, you we promised an early “developer kit” including a prototype headset and access to the software development tools needed to built games for the headset. 5,642 people signed up for that. In total, the campaign raised $2.4 million from 9,500 contributors.

ANALYST HAMMERS FACEBOOK: If you’re a Wall Street person, you probably think Facebook is hitting on all cylinders. The company’s stock recently climbed past $70 (it was $68 on Monday night). Its recent earnings have exceeded expectations by a wide margin and the social network has gone from nowhere in mobile to pulling in half its revenue from phones, tablets and the like. But if you’re a brand person–well–Facebook may be letting you down. A few weeks after a Digiday piece unearthed some Facebook discontent among agencies, now Forrester is calling out the company for “failing marketers.” Analyst Nate Elliot doesn’t pull any punches, essentially calling Facebook a pay-to-play environment. In other words, brands should give up on expecting to get anything for free on Facebook anymore, and their fans might be worthless. “Is there any doubt now that Facebook has abandoned social marketing, and that its paid ad products aren’t delivering results for most marketers?” wrote Mr. Elliot. A reasonable person might note that Facebook is a media platform like any other and expecting a free ride isn’t realistic. Whatever, maybe after hanging up with Pres. Obama, CEO Mark Zuckerberg might want to dial up Nate.

AMAZON PLANNING SET-TOP BOX THAT’S ALSO A GAMING CONSOLE: Jeff Bezos is nothing if not ambitious. The Amazon CEO has helped completely reshape how Americans buy everything from books to clothes, has rolled out a slew of original TV pilots that real viewers vote on, looked to disrupt grocery shopping, may use drone armies to deliver packages, and, oh by the way, bought The Washington Post. Now, he’s got his sights set on online TV (as are many tech giants). The Amazon set-top box is coming in April, WSJ reports. The device will feature apps for Netflix, Pandora and the like and will run on Google’s Android software. But here’s where things get even more interesting: Amazon’s set-top box will also double as a gaming device, TechCrunch reports. If you’re on the fence about laying out several hundred bucks for a new Xbox One or PlayStation 4, should you wait? If you’re a patient person, maybe. TechCrunch says that the Amazon Set Top Box will let users stream live games. Will these games offer the depth and quality of the Xbox’s upcoming Titanfall? Probably not initially, but if they can make the leap–watch out gaming industry.

TIMES FAMILY ISN’T SELLING, BUT OWNS LESS OF COMPANY: The Ochs-Sulzberger family’s total shareholding in the New York Times Co. fell to 12% in the past year, down a percentage point on this time last year, as the family cashed out a little more of its overall stake, the WSJ reports. Since 2010 the family’s stake has come down from 19%. But the reductions don’t affect the family’s control of the publisher, which is exercised through a class of shares that control most of the board. News of the reduction came in a government filing that also showed compensation figures for NYT executives. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. saw a drop in his total compensation to $5.3 million from $6.9 million a year earlier, while Chief Executive Mark Thompson earned $4.58 million.

NBC’S GREENBLATT BETTING ON “BIG EVENTS”: NBC entertainment chief, Bob Greenblatt, admits that turning around the struggling fourth-place network hasn’t been easy, but he is hoping a string of serialized, mini-series-styled shows helps put NBC on a new trajectory, reports WSJ. Call it Must-See Event TV (not to be confused with the recent NBC alien invasion dud, “The Event”). In the works are the new J.J. Abrams mystical drama “Believe,” which is off to a good start, the hostage-themed “Crisis,” and the ripped-from-the-Bible “A.D.” More in the full post. Read More »